Its weird that more places don't offer the sort of portaloo urinals that festivals offered. There is clearly a need but also it shows where other people are making their own choices, leaving a more expensive clear up for the organisers.
Often guys at the marathon start try to wait as long as they can to pee but then when they see the lines they panic and end up ducking up against a wall instead. I'd bet this guy was pretty frantic judging by the size of the puddle.
Ideally, everyone would want to pee immediately before the race starts, but there can't possibly be enough portapots to make that happen. So guys have to go wherever they can. I imagine that people who live near the starting line might get cranky about that.
I had been in one half marathon where I waited very close to the front of the start pen for one hour. As readers of this forum would expect, I started the run with a full bladder even though I have went immediately before entering the pen. The first couple of kilometers were in the business district where both sides of the road were barricaded almost continuously. I eventually made an emergency pit stop approximately one third into the race, by some bushes in a very open area but just slightly less public. Obviously, I was not the only one who went for a roadside pee.
This was a big race which attracted some tens of thousands of participants. Putting off the pre-race visit to the toilets until as close as the flag off time doesn't always work, because you would be right at the back of the start pen. To manage congestion, the organizer flags off by waves in intervals of perhaps ten to fifteen minutes, occasionally even longer, so if you are in the final wave you might need to wait just as long. Also, being at the back of the start pen means that you have to contend with all the slower runners clogging up throughout the race.
This was taken near the start of the London marathon by a grumpy resident. I can imagine with bladders fit to burst most men hardly cared who saw them as they did what they needed to do.
A bit of diluted urine is good for the grass. For best results, those guys should be spraying it around rather than peeing against the wall. If I lived near the starting line I'd put up a sign requesting that.